Cybernetics: Art, Design, Mathematics Call for Papers

How would you like to shape and take part in a conference where the main activity is to explore by listening, talking and questioning (conversing) rather than listen to, and give, prepared lectures; and where the aim is to move forward, taking next steps as a result of these conversations, rather than reporting on the already discovered? In other words, go to a conference where the intention is to move forward by conferring.

That is the central feature of our conference—a conference of conversation, of listening, talking, and questioning. Of open minds, and delight in the un-thought-of.

And what better way to make an interesting conversation than to bring together people whose backgrounds and interests are different, yet who want to learn by listening to others, to find what can be shared? In other words, to transcend boundaries.

So we bring together practitioners and theorists who wish to explore across boundaries, from 4 different subjects. But not just any 4 subjects. Subjects that already hold conversations together in pairs: cybernetics; art; design; mathematics. With all 4 together, we have a wider conversation, greater variety.

Our 4 subjects have a special quality in common. Each is used to comment, throw light on and inform other subjects. Perhaps mathematics is the most obvious case: a subject in its own right that is used everywhere to illuminate (and make operable) other subjects. But also a subject that can comment on itself: a subject which is a meta-subject, even to itself.

Our conference is surrounded by 3 other, related events. Look on the web site, chose what you like, and come and join us at the Experimental Media Performance Arts Centre at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, from the evening of July 30 to late afternoon on August 2, with surrounding events on July 29 and 30, and August 3 to 5.

Cybernetics: Art, Design, Mathematics—A Meta-Disciplinary Conversation is a joint project of the American Society for Cybernetics, and the Experimental Media and Performance Arts Centre and Department of Architecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Lanfranco Aceti is known for his social activism and extensive career as artist, curator, and academic. He is a research affiliate and visiting professor at ACT @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the Arts Administration Program at Boston University. He is also the Editor in Chief of the Leonardo Electronic Almanac, The MIT Press. He has exhibited numerous personal projects including Car Park, a public performance in the UK at the John Hansard Gallery; Who The People?, an installation artwork acquired in its entirety by the Chetham’s Library and Museum in Manchester; Sowing and Reaping, installation artworks acquired in their entirety by the National Museum of Contemporary Art of Cyprus; and Hope Coming On, a site-specific choral performance he designed for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with the collaboration of the Boston Children’s Chorus, and realized in front of Turner’s Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On). In 2017, Aceti prepared a series of new artworks for an exhibition entitled Shimmer and curated by Irini Papadimitriou (V&A) at the Tobazi Mansion in Hydra, a new large choral performance titled Accursed for the Thessaloniki Biennial in Greece; and Knock, Knock, Knocking a public space installation in the Mediterranean Garden Pavilion of the New Sea Waterfront of Thessaloniki.

About us

LEA is an MIT and Leonardo/ISAST publication entirely run by volunteers. It is currently ranked number 17 for Visual Arts Publications. The Editor in Chief is Professor Lanfranco Aceti (Boston University and ACT @ MIT).

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